Resources

Technical information

This chapter provides troubleshooting
and other technical information about using OmniPage
16. Please also read the online Readme file and other
help topics, or visit the Nuance web pages.

Troubleshooting

Although OmniPage is designed to be easy
to use, problems sometimes occur. Many of the error messages
contain selfexplanatory descriptions of what to do – check
connections, close other applications to free up memory,
and so on.

Please see your Windows documentation or OmniPage
online Help for information on optimizing your system
and application performance.

On supported file formats,
see the Online Help.

Solutions to try first

Try these solutions if you experience
problems starting or using OmniPage:

Make sure that your
scanner is plugged in and that all cable connections
are secure.

Visit the support
section of Nuance’s
web site. It contains Tech Notes
on commonly reported issues using OmniPage. Our web
pages may also offer assistance on the installation
process and troubleshooting.

Use the software that
came with your scanner to verify that the scanner
works properly before using it with OmniPage.

Make
sure you have the correct drivers for your scanner,
printer, and video card. Visit Nuance’s web
page through the Help menu and consult its scanner
section for more information.

Defragment your hard
disk. See Windows online Help for more information.

Uninstall
and reinstall OmniPage, as described in the section,
"Uninstalling
the software" in the Installation
and setup chapter.

Testing OmniPage

Restarting Windows 2000, XP or Vista in its safe
mode allows you to test OmniPage on a simplified system.
This is recommended when you cannot resolve crashing
problems or if OmniPage has stopped running altogether.
See Windows online Help for more information.

To test
OmniPage in safe mode:

Restart your computer in safe mode
by pressing F8 immediately after you see the 'Starting
Windows' message.

Launch OmniPage and try performing
OCR on an image. Use a known image file, for instance
one of the supplied sample image files.

If OmniPage
does not launch or run properly in safe mode,
then there may be a problem with the installation.
Uninstall and reinstall OmniPage, and then
run it in Windows safe mode.

If OmniPage runs
in safe mode, then a device driver on your
system may be interfering with OmniPage operation.
Troubleshoot the problem by restarting Windows
in Step-by-Step Confirmation mode. See Windows
online Help for more information.

Text does
not get recognized properly

Try these solutions if any
part of the original document is not converted to text
properly during OCR:

Look at the original page image and
ensure that all text areas are enclosed by text zones.
If an area is not enclosed by a zone, it is generally
ignored during OCR. See the section on creating and
modifying zones, in the 'Processing
documents' Chapter.

Make
sure text zones are identified correctly. Reidentify
zone types and contents, if necessary, and perform
OCR on the document again. See 'Zone
types and properties'
in the 'Processing documents' Chapter.

Be sure you
do not have an unsuitable template loaded by mistake.
If zone borders cut through text, recognition is
impaired.

Adjust the brightness and contrast
sliders in the Scanner panel of the Options dialog
box. You may need to experiment with different settings
combinations to get the desired results.

Use the Image
Enhancement Tools to optimize your image for OCR.

Check
the resolution of the original image. Hover the cursor
over a page thumbnail for a popup display. If the
resolution is significantly above or below 300 dpi,
recognition is likely to suffer.

Make sure the correct
document languages are selected in the OCR panel
of the Options dialog box. Only languages included
in the document should be selected.

Turn IntelliTrain
on and make some proofing corrections. This is most
likely to help with stylized fonts or uniformly degraded
documents. If IntelliTrain was running, try turning
it off – on some types of degraded
documents it may not be able to help.

Do some manual
training, or edit existing training to remove unsuccessful
training.

If you use True Page as the Text Editor
view or for export, recognized text is put into text
boxes or frames. Some text may be hidden if a text
box is too small. To view the text, place the cursor
in the text box and use the arrow keys on your keyboard
to scroll to the top, bottom, left, or right of the
box.

Check the glass, mirrors, and lenses
on your scanner for dust, smudges or scratches. Clean
if necessary.

Problems with fax recognition

Try these solutions to improve OCR
accuracy on fax images:

Ask senders to use clean, original
documents if possible.

Ask senders to select Fine
or Best mode when they send you a fax. This produces
a resolution of 200 x 200 dpi.

Ask senders to transmit
files directly to your computer via fax modem if
you both have one. You can save fax images as image
files and then load them into OmniPage. See “Input
from image files” in the Processing
documents Chapter.

System or performance problems
during OCR

Try these solutions if a crash occurs during
OCR or if processing takes a very long time:

Break complex page
images (lots of text and graphics or elaborate formatting)
into smaller jobs. Draw zones manually or modify
automatically created zones and perform OCR on one
page area at a time. See “Working
with zones” in
the Processing documents Chapter.

Restart Windows,
2000, XP or Vista in safe mode and test OmniPage
by performing OCR on the included sample image files.

If
you are performing multiple tasks at once, such as
recognizing and printing, OCR may take longer.